English
gopher
Gopher may come from Cajun French gaufre.
- Cajun Frenchmoderngaufreliterally ‘honeycomb, waffle’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 2017gopher
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Cajun Frenchmoderngaufreliterally ‘honeycomb, waffle’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 2017gopher
Earliest quotation: 2017, Lex Sheehan, Learning Functional Programming in Go: “I'm not at all advocating for any Gophers to…”
The story
Perhaps an adaptation of Cajun French gaufre (literally “honeycomb, waffle”), based on the analogy of holes in the ground to the indentations in a honeycomb or a waffle (doublet of waffle).
Every English word from Cajun French gaufre
Today it means
noun A small burrowing rodent native to North and Central America, especially in the family Geomyidae (pocket gophers).
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Cajun French gaufre / gopher